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Friday, June 25, 2010

MLB Career Builder

Before we get down to discussing our newest role, let’s talk poll results. We asked you who you would’ve chosen as the new the Mets manager if you had to choose between Bobby Valentine and Jerry Manuel. All 4 of you (yes, 4) felt that if these were your only two choices, you were going to call it a day and the Mets would be dead to you. You’ll be switching your allegiance to the Pirates. Wow. You truly are as angry and bitter as we are. The other two options to vote for were “Jerry Manuel can hardly speak. Even though he’s a jerk, I’m going with Valentine simply because he has some concept of the English language” or “I’d rather have a manager that I can laugh at for his idiocy than a manager who’s a dull idiot. I choose Manuel.” We agree that there is no lesser of the two evils in this situation.

You may have noticed that lately, managers just can’t keep their jobs. Following the defeat of the Orioles earlier this week, the Marlins fired manager Fred Gonzalez, as well as their bench and hitting coaches, Carlos Tosca and Jim Preseley. Edwin Rodriguez, who has spent the past 1 ½ seasons managing Triple-A New Orleans, will take over as manager in the interim. Brandon Hyde and John Mallee will resume the role of bench and hitting coaches…also in the interim. This news doesn’t come too long after the Orioles’ firing of Dave Trembley.

Since teams are having such difficulty finding suitable managers to run their ships (for f’s sakes, everyone wants to interview that no talent a$$ clown, Bobby Valentine), we’ve decided to commission a panel of exceedingly qualified individuals to screen potential applicants for MLB management positions. You will see in this photograph that this panel of highly trained operatives consists of King Julien, Serena, Lisa, and a Mexican. Before you get all snippety, we assure you that he’s a very important Mexican. His government can hardly function when he’s absent.

After a long, arduous discussion that lasted many days, pizza pies, cases of beer, and several bottles of wine, we came up with a list of credentials that any individual interested in applying for a manager’s position should possess.

Managers should not have a belly that hangs over their belt. It is vital for a manager to be able to survive the frequent trips from the dugout to the mound and an enormous belly is bound to send someone participating in that type of physical exertion into cardiac arrest. We just can’t have that. For the sake of the children.

It is necessary for you to have had played baseball at some point in your life. T-ball is acceptable, but the collegiate level and/or higher is preferred. How do you expect to run a baseball team when you’ve never played the sport? We can’t have hypocrites running the league. For the sake of the children.

We’d like you to have a college degree, but apparently that’s not a realistic request, therefore a high school diploma will have to do. And no. A GED does not count. Graduate on time like the rest of us did. For the sake of the children.

You must be able to articulate complete sentences during press conferences. This means that anyone similar to Mumbles from Dick Tracy need not apply. For the sake of the children.

Must be a competent strategist. If you enjoy leaving your pitcher out there for an inordinate length of time to be pummeled by the opposing team’s offense, then this job is clearly not for you. We are seeking people with strong leadership skills who can determine the appropriate time to call the damn bull pen! For the sake of the children.

Capable of controlling unruly or lazy players. Not running out a ground ball should not be tolerated, nor should a hissy fit in the dugout be swept under the rug. We’re dealing with adults, not toddlers. When issuing punishment, if your player should attempt to retaliate, you should have the strength to knock that player on his a$$ without fearing any repercussions from upper management. We’re telling you that from here on out, the buck stops with you. It’s time you put those bratty weenies in their damn place. For the sake of the children.

It highly recommended that you not make large bets against your own team. This should not require further explanation. For the sake of the children.

Since the manager is at the forefront of every team, the individual in that role should appear presentable. Hopefully, this will set a good example and trickle down to the players, inspiring a few haircuts, a shower, a shave, and perhaps a clean uniform? For the sake of the children.

Anyone interested in applying for a management position should email their resume to the Traveling Baseball Babes. Thank you.

Some of you may actually care to know that the Fred K’s Cancer walk was a success! We raised $2,300 on the day and we managed to do it without any sort of large donation made by coughahembradzieglercoughahem. We’re still accepting donations until July 1st so if you’re interested, you can still support the Freds! If not, feel free to ignore this entire paragraph and proceed to the next one.

We’ll be at the Mets/Twins game on Sunday, scoring a free travel mug and hopefully a boyfriend with the initials JM. If we’re to be perfectly frank with ourselves, that second part definitely won’t happen, but at this stage of our pathetic and Loserville lives, we feel that it’s important for us to make some sort of effort. Who knows? Maybe one of the JM’s is newly divorced and both JM boys are out for some not-so-hot piece of New York a$$. And since he’s Baby Jesus, Joe Mauer is our Super Hero of the Week.

Baseball Notes: No. We’re not covering the Johan Santana situation, so if you’re looking for that kind of information, stop reading. You’ll not find it here. The Giants have announced that Mark DeRosa will have season-ending surgery on his left wrist. DeRosa has been out since May 9th due to an inflamed nerve in his wrist. The end.

Outfield summed up our judging process the best when they sang, “Bobby’s on a vacation far away. We hope he never comes back to manage. So many things that we wanted to say. You know we like our managers a little bit smarter. We don’t wanna use your management skills tonight. We just wanna lose your management skills tonight.”